Degradation is a form of torture USA performed in Abu Graib. Our current president is a weapon of information warfare, hitting Americans daily with shame and humiliation. None of these shocking embarrassing acts by Trump is happening by accident.
Monday, June 4, 2018
Saturday, June 2, 2018
Personal stuff while I pack for another move
My life is an endless test flight. I keep taking off, going into uncharted territory, holding on as the shaking vehicle rumbles me to a stable place. Then I land, cruise for a while, looking for the next takeoff point. But today the vehicle is ready to make a landing, and it looks like this “senior” place near Tahoe airport will let me in. Still I have some low lying foliage to get through before I hit the landing site, and there still could be a bomber on my right or left, so I have to stay alert, still. The vehicle is capable to take off again, it really needs maintenance, but if it has to, I will take off again and head north, may drop off some weight in Reno and switch to a lighter transport device. Next few days I'm just coasting above the foliage, preparing for the next acceleration. Wherever I end up, the materials inside have to be boxed up. Or when I take off on next flight, I'll lose too much of the few assets I'm carrying.
*
*
Settling in to watch the deconstruction of my nation, stopping myself from posting more harangues about the newest Trump act. I had the joy of transcribing an hour long interview with Dinesh D’Souza a while back, and because of today’s “pardon” just hearing D’Souza’s voice on a news clip today gives me the visceral sense memory of the horror I felt as I worked in my room on that job, hearing what was in the depths of that man’s soul.
When not transcribing, I have spent last three years hitting my keyboard at every new shock of the Trump administration, dating back to before his coup overtook the 2016 election.
It does no good. It's like asking my alcoholic neighbor next door to let me get the sleep I need during the day. Approaching Trumpsters with logic being clear and concise with facts does not work. The person on the receiving end of your communication is not going to hear you, no matter what you say. Instead you can expect a knee-jerk response, sound bites straight from the President or Fox News. Or now, Dinesh D’Souza. The stranglehold over information in USA is uncanny.
Something has made half of Americans into zombies, the rest of us are just starting to figure out how to deal with it, and for me approaching age seventy, what is there to do other than hunker down, secure in place.
At some point someone will have to do more. But in meantime, watching Trump deconstruct things as critical as the CIA and FBI makes me feel… intimidated scared. Who is going to step into those agencies and what are they going to do?
A power greater than me or even my local congressman is in charge, and letters to the editor at this point are a waste of energy. I have to pack for my next move in two weeks. I'm still leaving open the option of Canada but will probably just go into senior housing, protected by HUD, while it still exists.
There, I'm going into listening mode. Real journalists keep their own mouths shut and just listen. Time for me to assume that persona for a while.When not transcribing, I have spent last three years hitting my keyboard at every new shock of the Trump administration, dating back to before his coup overtook the 2016 election.
It does no good. It's like asking my alcoholic neighbor next door to let me get the sleep I need during the day. Approaching Trumpsters with logic being clear and concise with facts does not work. The person on the receiving end of your communication is not going to hear you, no matter what you say. Instead you can expect a knee-jerk response, sound bites straight from the President or Fox News. Or now, Dinesh D’Souza. The stranglehold over information in USA is uncanny.
Something has made half of Americans into zombies, the rest of us are just starting to figure out how to deal with it, and for me approaching age seventy, what is there to do other than hunker down, secure in place.
At some point someone will have to do more. But in meantime, watching Trump deconstruct things as critical as the CIA and FBI makes me feel… intimidated scared. Who is going to step into those agencies and what are they going to do?
A power greater than me or even my local congressman is in charge, and letters to the editor at this point are a waste of energy. I have to pack for my next move in two weeks. I'm still leaving open the option of Canada but will probably just go into senior housing, protected by HUD, while it still exists.
I still have that option of Canada open, haven't signed the lease yet.
Still feeling hinky like something could go wrong and I'll be on the street with no option but Reno in 2 weeks. Will feel better when I sign that lease. I'll be able to save cash living there. Then go to Canada...
Still feeling hinky like something could go wrong and I'll be on the street with no option but Reno in 2 weeks. Will feel better when I sign that lease. I'll be able to save cash living there. Then go to Canada...
*
The older you get, the less people your age there are around. So Now I get why seniors move into housing with other seniors. Life shuffles and bangs us around. If you manage to make it to seventy, you want to regroup to be with the other survivors.
*
Moving helps. You leave bad feelings behind with the dirtying rugs and dust gathering in corners. You carefully pack the things you want to take with you, even clean them better than usual before wrapping them in paper and placing them in a new clean U-Haul box. You know next time you see that little statue, you will be unpacking it in a new clean place.
Just now a memory from 2015 popped up on Facebook, me crying about Lizzie. Today as I saw the Facebook “memory,” I did not go right into crying, like I did all the time three years ago. Somehow I’d left those tears behind two apartments back and now another move makes all that sadness even farther away.
Moving often helps.
Just now a memory from 2015 popped up on Facebook, me crying about Lizzie. Today as I saw the Facebook “memory,” I did not go right into crying, like I did all the time three years ago. Somehow I’d left those tears behind two apartments back and now another move makes all that sadness even farther away.
Moving often helps.
*
In the news, two chubby dictators join hands over Happy Meals, North Korea sees McDonalds and KFC as a great way to create jobs for its people unlike the nukes, which are dirtying their landscape. Soon there will be a Disney Nuke Theme Park built on the remains of NK weapons caches.
*
RANT: It's almost over.
Spent last 2 afternoons listening to the Banshee on crack next door shouting, not willing to go outside and ask her to stop bk it does no good and I'm moving in 2 weeks or so only have that much longer to put up with it. BUT I know it's affected my health, never sleeping more than 4 hours in 2 plus years, isn't this a torture technique. It astounds me that no one will do anything about it. She's drunk but she knows what she's doing. When someone complains about the noise, she's upstairs in the bedroom of the "building manager" for a few hours and then 2 days later she's outside drunk shouting again. Nothing happens. The "manager" seems to be drunk too just quieter, and apparently getting blown so what does he care. It astounds me that a 70 year old woman like me who still has to work nights and needs sleep, also has to live next door to this, and no one does anything about it. My heart races as I lie there wishing she'd shut the fuck up. Meanwhile in 2 years I've lived here, she's gone from blond to stringy gray, same dead strands hanging on her face, which has gone from kind of pretty to a fright mask. Two more weeks and I'll be with people who care about each other, in a building managed where drunken hollering tenants are the ones who have to move out. It'll be over soon and going outside and hollering at her does no good at all. Talking to her kindly does no good either. Once she's drunk she's drunk and nothing else matters. Except that she has to YELL to everyone who walks by about what a fun time she's having. People move in, get fed up, and move out. I think the landlord keeps her here bk they make money by then keeping desperate running tenants' security deposits. They will make a good grand on me, bk I'm leaving as soon as I can and I've paid well into June rent. Plus they have a 2-months security deposit I gave when I moved in, I'll probably never see it. That's the business model all over USA now. There is nothing in my lease about how the deposit will be returned. Can't wait to check out of this shit hole, literally, where if you flush your toilet paper, the shit comes up from a hole in front of your door. Aargh, people are making money off of this building, a company in China owns it, YAY USA hope I can just tune out the rest of the city once I get in Senior Housing. I'll see my neighbor now and then bk the bus passes near here. I'll watch her wrinkle and age and get a snarlier look on her face over the next year. but soon I won't have to listen to her BS billowing in my window and filling my life with her chaos, shouting with several people around her going waaawaa waa agreeing with her. She is a perpetual motion machine that keeps drugs and booze in her house by keeping people from the street in her house. Soon I won't have to witness this anymore, yeah. Last few days it's been especially bad bk she goes after visiting children like a Grimm's Fairy Tale witch. Those tenants will likely move out next month too, bk no one will do anything about the crazy drunk lady who literally CRASHES family events other tenants are trying to have and starts touching and playing with the children. Can't wait to go where I don't have to witness this anymore.
Yesterday other tenants were trying to have a family party and there was Banshee on Crack hollering and singing getting right in the middle of it going "ring around the rosy" with the children. I don't get why people let her near their kids. It literally makes me sick can't wait will have my move in date today I think.
I think those kids will have nightmares about her the rest of their life. This woman looks like a cat who's been run over and somehow got up and kept going. She reeks of stale cigarettes and malt liquor
She looks like the momma in Throw Momma from the Train, literally.
Spent last 2 afternoons listening to the Banshee on crack next door shouting, not willing to go outside and ask her to stop bk it does no good and I'm moving in 2 weeks or so only have that much longer to put up with it. BUT I know it's affected my health, never sleeping more than 4 hours in 2 plus years, isn't this a torture technique. It astounds me that no one will do anything about it. She's drunk but she knows what she's doing. When someone complains about the noise, she's upstairs in the bedroom of the "building manager" for a few hours and then 2 days later she's outside drunk shouting again. Nothing happens. The "manager" seems to be drunk too just quieter, and apparently getting blown so what does he care. It astounds me that a 70 year old woman like me who still has to work nights and needs sleep, also has to live next door to this, and no one does anything about it. My heart races as I lie there wishing she'd shut the fuck up. Meanwhile in 2 years I've lived here, she's gone from blond to stringy gray, same dead strands hanging on her face, which has gone from kind of pretty to a fright mask. Two more weeks and I'll be with people who care about each other, in a building managed where drunken hollering tenants are the ones who have to move out. It'll be over soon and going outside and hollering at her does no good at all. Talking to her kindly does no good either. Once she's drunk she's drunk and nothing else matters. Except that she has to YELL to everyone who walks by about what a fun time she's having. People move in, get fed up, and move out. I think the landlord keeps her here bk they make money by then keeping desperate running tenants' security deposits. They will make a good grand on me, bk I'm leaving as soon as I can and I've paid well into June rent. Plus they have a 2-months security deposit I gave when I moved in, I'll probably never see it. That's the business model all over USA now. There is nothing in my lease about how the deposit will be returned. Can't wait to check out of this shit hole, literally, where if you flush your toilet paper, the shit comes up from a hole in front of your door. Aargh, people are making money off of this building, a company in China owns it, YAY USA hope I can just tune out the rest of the city once I get in Senior Housing. I'll see my neighbor now and then bk the bus passes near here. I'll watch her wrinkle and age and get a snarlier look on her face over the next year. but soon I won't have to listen to her BS billowing in my window and filling my life with her chaos, shouting with several people around her going waaawaa waa agreeing with her. She is a perpetual motion machine that keeps drugs and booze in her house by keeping people from the street in her house. Soon I won't have to witness this anymore, yeah. Last few days it's been especially bad bk she goes after visiting children like a Grimm's Fairy Tale witch. Those tenants will likely move out next month too, bk no one will do anything about the crazy drunk lady who literally CRASHES family events other tenants are trying to have and starts touching and playing with the children. Can't wait to go where I don't have to witness this anymore.
Yesterday other tenants were trying to have a family party and there was Banshee on Crack hollering and singing getting right in the middle of it going "ring around the rosy" with the children. I don't get why people let her near their kids. It literally makes me sick can't wait will have my move in date today I think.
I think those kids will have nightmares about her the rest of their life. This woman looks like a cat who's been run over and somehow got up and kept going. She reeks of stale cigarettes and malt liquor
She looks like the momma in Throw Momma from the Train, literally.
She was pretty
and blond 2 years ago and has deteriorated to Momma on the train. I'll have to drop by the neighborhood now
and then to see how much more awful she's gotten to look.
*
Perhaps Earth’s fate is to be a planet of short round laughing people, licking their fingers from Kentucky Fried, farting to produce electricity, and shouting racist jokes at each other, BUT making each other laugh while blowing up own nukes. Maybe we all need to be like Trump and shout politically incorrect jokes at each other so we can end up loving each other, as long as there's plenty of fast food around. Chocolate cake, don’t forget the chocolate cake. The whole planet will be Trumpified, loving our chocolate cake, thinking our race is best but fucking everyone and anyone in meantime … why not.
*
Packing, found notes I had on refrigerator about 1.5 years ago when I decided to wait on moving to Canada: “You're safe here, wait until June 2018 then see what happens.”
Well. .
***
I keep watching film linked below over and over on YouTube, probably because whatever economic thing we're entering, movies about The Great Depression suddenly seem current.
"They Shoot Horses Don’t They?" I found two uploads of the 1969 film but Disney recently took the other one down, claiming it contained some content they own. This one will probably only last a few more months because Disney doesn't have enough money…
Watching Red Buttons do a Desperate for pennies Tap Dance is reason enough to watch this film at 14:10 in video.Also I spring for YouTube Red so I get it with no ads. The version without Red may have lots of ad breaks. It's worth it to buy YouTube Red as one’s brain can only take so much.
Well. .
***
I keep watching film linked below over and over on YouTube, probably because whatever economic thing we're entering, movies about The Great Depression suddenly seem current.
"They Shoot Horses Don’t They?" I found two uploads of the 1969 film but Disney recently took the other one down, claiming it contained some content they own. This one will probably only last a few more months because Disney doesn't have enough money…
Watching Red Buttons do a Desperate for pennies Tap Dance is reason enough to watch this film at 14:10 in video.Also I spring for YouTube Red so I get it with no ads. The version without Red may have lots of ad breaks. It's worth it to buy YouTube Red as one’s brain can only take so much.
Posted by
Kay Ebeling
Writing City of Angels Blog since 2007, not just from L.A., as the city of angels is everywhere.
Monday, May 28, 2018
The Big Thud revisited
I've had the rug pulled out from under me so many times that I'm still not certain I'm moving into Tahoe Senior Plaza. Even though the manager talked to my past five years landlords and even though all three said they were sending documents one needs to get into a HUD senior project, even though I talked to one of them and he said he was sending it that afternoon, I am still sitting here scared that it won’t happen.
Honest that's what the last ten years of my life has done to me. I'm scared, distrust everyone, think people will scheme to work against me. Still. Because that did happen to me when I was doing City of Angels Blog about the pedophile priests from 2007 to about 2015 when I quit and all the weird stuff happening in my life came to a stop. Mostly. It’s so bad that as I learn more about Black Cube, the Israeli private spy corporation that helped get Trump elected, I see some of the tactics they have used politically in things that happened to me, especially when I was living in Chicago. “They sent operatives” to fuck with people’s lives, reports NBC. I know that several of the people who were in my life during those years were operatives, and I know something weird happened to Lizzie while I was in Chicago that was paid for by that archbishop, I just know it. Sometimes you feel something and know it's true, but you can't prove it. So I'm in a state of fear and perpetual distrust even now.
As I plan to move into my third senior project, I have to train myself to keep my mouth shut. Last thing I want is to effect a Big Thud, which was what used to happen every time I mentioned I was writing about the pedophile priests as one of the victims. Whatever conversation or activity was going on in a room came to a stop with a big thud.
Then after that, half the people hated me.
That years long experience gave me the perspective that the Catholic Church did an amazing job of convincing its members that the pedophile priest victims were pulling some kind of con, it wasn’t as big a deal as everyone says, kind of like what I say about Harvey Weinstein, which personally I've found perplexing so have been trying to keep my mouth shut about that too.
Lately while riding the Number Fifty bus on Sundays, I've seen many of my future neighbors from the senior place get on there and get off at the Catholic Church. Several locals do signs of the cross every time the bus passes the church. Crazy Mary who complains I smell of marijuana goes there more than once a week, always on Sunday, I think she still wears that safari hat.
Catholics are everywhere and I still have this thing that follows me everywhere I go, where anyone with an internet connection can Google my name and find the blog I wrote about the pedophile priests and it's caused me to Have To Move from the last two senior housing projects I lived in, one in Elgin one in Lancaster. One guy in Lancaster got so hostile to me after he found out I was a vocal pedophile priest “survivor” that he’d chase me around the grounds in his electric wheelchair scowling at me. He spied on me. I'd look up and see him looking in my window. He also volunteered on Sundays with children at the Catholic Church that was across the street from that apartment building.
So right now, today as I sit here having to wait at least until Tuesday maybe a couple days more before I have a definite move in date, I was actually crying a few minutes ago. Because I can't feel secure YET.
Because the rug has been pulled out from under me so many times, over and over, that I just expect it.
Maybe more than my apartment is about to change.
Or
I still have an exit plan. If I don't move in there for some reason, I'm sure as hell not staying in this awful apartment with hollering crazy neighbors. So still have to start packing
I still have an exit plan, three of them actually, from last years of thinking of moving. Maybe I was crying because now I'll never move to Vancouver.
Hmm. Here is what I wrote about The Big Thud few years back:
Honest that's what the last ten years of my life has done to me. I'm scared, distrust everyone, think people will scheme to work against me. Still. Because that did happen to me when I was doing City of Angels Blog about the pedophile priests from 2007 to about 2015 when I quit and all the weird stuff happening in my life came to a stop. Mostly. It’s so bad that as I learn more about Black Cube, the Israeli private spy corporation that helped get Trump elected, I see some of the tactics they have used politically in things that happened to me, especially when I was living in Chicago. “They sent operatives” to fuck with people’s lives, reports NBC. I know that several of the people who were in my life during those years were operatives, and I know something weird happened to Lizzie while I was in Chicago that was paid for by that archbishop, I just know it. Sometimes you feel something and know it's true, but you can't prove it. So I'm in a state of fear and perpetual distrust even now.
As I plan to move into my third senior project, I have to train myself to keep my mouth shut. Last thing I want is to effect a Big Thud, which was what used to happen every time I mentioned I was writing about the pedophile priests as one of the victims. Whatever conversation or activity was going on in a room came to a stop with a big thud.
Then after that, half the people hated me.
That years long experience gave me the perspective that the Catholic Church did an amazing job of convincing its members that the pedophile priest victims were pulling some kind of con, it wasn’t as big a deal as everyone says, kind of like what I say about Harvey Weinstein, which personally I've found perplexing so have been trying to keep my mouth shut about that too.
Lately while riding the Number Fifty bus on Sundays, I've seen many of my future neighbors from the senior place get on there and get off at the Catholic Church. Several locals do signs of the cross every time the bus passes the church. Crazy Mary who complains I smell of marijuana goes there more than once a week, always on Sunday, I think she still wears that safari hat.
Catholics are everywhere and I still have this thing that follows me everywhere I go, where anyone with an internet connection can Google my name and find the blog I wrote about the pedophile priests and it's caused me to Have To Move from the last two senior housing projects I lived in, one in Elgin one in Lancaster. One guy in Lancaster got so hostile to me after he found out I was a vocal pedophile priest “survivor” that he’d chase me around the grounds in his electric wheelchair scowling at me. He spied on me. I'd look up and see him looking in my window. He also volunteered on Sundays with children at the Catholic Church that was across the street from that apartment building.
So right now, today as I sit here having to wait at least until Tuesday maybe a couple days more before I have a definite move in date, I was actually crying a few minutes ago. Because I can't feel secure YET.
Because the rug has been pulled out from under me so many times, over and over, that I just expect it.
Maybe more than my apartment is about to change.
Or
I still have an exit plan. If I don't move in there for some reason, I'm sure as hell not staying in this awful apartment with hollering crazy neighbors. So still have to start packing
I still have an exit plan, three of them actually, from last years of thinking of moving. Maybe I was crying because now I'll never move to Vancouver.
Hmm. Here is what I wrote about The Big Thud few years back:
Saturday, May 26, 2018
Making myself laugh out loud
I often make myself laugh out loud as I sit here in my room alone working. Like just now, I was thinking of how beautiful and seductive I still am even though I'm almost seventy.
I could go up to a guy and say, “Hey, want a lap dance? Just be careful I have arthritis in my hips.”
That thought passed through my head and then I sat here laughing and laughing and laughing.
I could go up to a guy and say, “Hey, want a lap dance? Just be careful I have arthritis in my hips.”
That thought passed through my head and then I sat here laughing and laughing and laughing.
When the Bible says Israel, it does not mean a sliver of land created in WW2
I wonder if the Vatican Monk who found, translated, edited, and added to the Bible the passage about God giving land to Israel is still around in some spirit form to see how twisted that passage has become now in global politics.
Yes, American Christians, the Bible is a compilation of writings gathered by Monks in the Brand New Vatican around the year Three Hundred AD, The idea that the Bible was “written by God” is an amazingly successful PR job.
The Bible is a compilation of writings by humans about God that was edited and published by monks who were assigned to the project after Constantine rode into Rome with a bunch of thugs holding giant crosses and claimed the nation for Jesus.
Two thousand years of repetition can truly twist the truth. There's no heresy in what I say, I'm not even denying there is a God. I'm saying the Bible was compiled by Vatican monks, it does not have the mystical powers humans give it, in fact that "mysticism" is a blatant form of manipulation by powerful leaders.
If the Bible does say Israel belongs to the Jews, it wasn't referring to a sliver of land created after World War 2.
"God is not a real estate agent." I just heard an interviewee say on Richard Engel's report from Jerusalem tonight on NBC as I wrote this.
Man, humans, when are you going to start using the brains "god" gave you!?
Yes, American Christians, the Bible is a compilation of writings gathered by Monks in the Brand New Vatican around the year Three Hundred AD, The idea that the Bible was “written by God” is an amazingly successful PR job.
The Bible is a compilation of writings by humans about God that was edited and published by monks who were assigned to the project after Constantine rode into Rome with a bunch of thugs holding giant crosses and claimed the nation for Jesus.
Two thousand years of repetition can truly twist the truth. There's no heresy in what I say, I'm not even denying there is a God. I'm saying the Bible was compiled by Vatican monks, it does not have the mystical powers humans give it, in fact that "mysticism" is a blatant form of manipulation by powerful leaders.
If the Bible does say Israel belongs to the Jews, it wasn't referring to a sliver of land created after World War 2.
"God is not a real estate agent." I just heard an interviewee say on Richard Engel's report from Jerusalem tonight on NBC as I wrote this.
Man, humans, when are you going to start using the brains "god" gave you!?
Thursday, May 24, 2018
Making everyone on the bus laugh
*
As I got back on the bus, the driver who’d overheard an earlier conversation I had said to me, “Don’t believe what Crazy Mary says, she makes things up.” On an earlier ride, Mary, the very wrinkled lady who always wears a safari hat, replied to news I was moving into Senior Housing by telling me Harry the gambler was supposed to get that apartment, so now he was going to be gunning for me. But I already didn't believe her.
I told Jay the driver, “Oh I know Mary. A few months back, every time I got on the bus, she’d complain and get off right away, saying I smelled like weed.” As I walked back to a seat I continued, “And that just can't be true. Because I never exhale, it's too expensive.”
I sat down looked up and everybody EVERYBODY on the bus was laughing. Not just a short laugh, but one of those long, thoughtful laughs that last a long moment. Their chuckling noise blended with the sound of traffic, and they were nodding at me in appreciation, every person on the bus.
It's very gratifying to make people laugh and I think as I enter this time of life called Old Age, I'll be doing a lot of that. This little old lady’s life is FULL of comedy material.
As I got back on the bus, the driver who’d overheard an earlier conversation I had said to me, “Don’t believe what Crazy Mary says, she makes things up.” On an earlier ride, Mary, the very wrinkled lady who always wears a safari hat, replied to news I was moving into Senior Housing by telling me Harry the gambler was supposed to get that apartment, so now he was going to be gunning for me. But I already didn't believe her.
I told Jay the driver, “Oh I know Mary. A few months back, every time I got on the bus, she’d complain and get off right away, saying I smelled like weed.” As I walked back to a seat I continued, “And that just can't be true. Because I never exhale, it's too expensive.”
I sat down looked up and everybody EVERYBODY on the bus was laughing. Not just a short laugh, but one of those long, thoughtful laughs that last a long moment. Their chuckling noise blended with the sound of traffic, and they were nodding at me in appreciation, every person on the bus.
It's very gratifying to make people laugh and I think as I enter this time of life called Old Age, I'll be doing a lot of that. This little old lady’s life is FULL of comedy material.
Kay Ebeling
*Misinformation is warfare because it kills people. 2081 part 5
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick suggested arming teachers and reducing the number of exits a school can have, two days after the Santa Fe, Texas, shooting that led to the deaths of ten persons, where early survivor reports said, "we couldn't get out the doors."
A lot of the misinformation pouring into USA now will result in more Americans getting killed, and U.S. Republicans repeat the misinformation, with patriotic fervor, working for a coup attacking the USA without even seeming to know it. The year 2018 can be seen as 2081, much like George Orwell saw 1948 as he wrote "1984" in isolation in Scotland.***
A lot of the misinformation pouring into USA now will result in more Americans getting killed, and U.S. Republicans repeat the misinformation, with patriotic fervor, working for a coup attacking the USA without even seeming to know it. The year 2018 can be seen as 2081, much like George Orwell saw 1948 as he wrote "1984" in isolation in Scotland.***
Misinformation is called warfare because it kills people.
After the Parkland Florida school shooting, the response
from Republicans was
to arm the teachers. Inexplicable,
illogical as it was, that sound bite that came from the NRA was repeated over
and over until no real discussion on a solution could even begin after
Parkland. Persons of reason found themselves arguing against an idea so absurd it's
hard to come up with an argument against it, it's so obviously absurd. Yeah sure add more guns into the mix especially
when trained police officers often shoot the wrong person- see what I mean, I'm
wasting my time now bringing up obvious arguments against arming teachers.
Arming teachers would result in more people getting
killed.
After the Santa Fe Texas shooting Republicans repeated
the next sound bite to come from the NRA: Our schools have too many doors. Too many entrances means shooters have too
many ways to enter schools, the sound bite appeared, and so instead of logic
and concern, our news media put Republicans on air and in their print columns
stating that a a solution to the school shooting epidemic is lock the exit and
entrance doors.
Barricade the doors.
In other words keep the students from being able to
get out next time. Several first hand
accounts of life inside the art room closet in the Santa Fe shooting described not
being able to get out of the room. So
yes, Republicans, lock more doors, add that to your crazy sound bite about arming
students.
The end result of both ideas would be more Americans getting
killed.
Some things the Republicans say, I hear clearly the underlying
message. And it's sinister.
In my imagination I see Putin and a few oligarch pals
in a room somewhere, coming up with these ideas, and laughing at how easy it is
to manipulate Americans. Especially with
the foundation they built by paying to get Fox News and its anti-American messaging on every cable lineup in the USA
in the 1990s when no one was paying attention.
*
Someone is
manipulating the message in a sinister way, that will result in more Americans
being killed. That's why it's called
information warfare*
Posted by Kay Ebeling
Producer of City of Angels Blog
not just L.A., the city of angels is everywhere
***
Gradually in increments the nation changes. 2081 continued:
*
By: Kay Ebeling
By: Kay Ebeling
*
Gradually in increments so you don’t notice it day by day, the nation changes.
Gradually in increments so you don’t notice it day by day, the nation changes.
For example, over past few years, the
people staying in camp grounds in the resort town where I live have stopped
being families on vacation and instead become families traveling desperate searching for a place to live, as 2018 converts in my head to 2081 much like George Orwell converted 1948 to 1984 as he wrote.***
*
*
I quit going to doctors
a long time ago. Every clinic is so overrun with patients that the harried medical staff only have time to hear two or three words of your
symptoms. Then the city college nursing grad, never a doctor, prescribes whatever medicine whose keywords match something you said. Often the
medicine has a new name but is no different from one that was taken off the market only months earlier for its killer side effects.
The end result is poor
people die, while pharma companies gather data on their new products, just one of many slow incremental changes people in USA have lived with over past few years.
*
There are empty houses and condos in almost every U.S. city and yet thousands of people live on sidewalks, in cars, and in
campgrounds and motels.
The empty houses in the
resort town where I live were built for upscale renters, families on vacation
with lots of money to spend. But most
families today are too broke to take a vacation. So the empty homes stay empty. They sit in pristine
condition, waiting for that illusive wealthy person to show up and rent them
for one week, paying so much rent that it's worth it for the owner to keep the house empty most
of the time.
No one knows who the owners of the empty houses are or where they live.
No one knows who the owners of the empty houses are or where they live.
Meanwhile, moms with
kids live in motels and campgrounds while those houses stay empty.
*
Climate
In my head I'm a climate scientist.
Sometimes in my head I still work at NASA, although lately for the first time in my life, I don't
regret leaving my job at LBJ Space Center in Houston in 1983. For years after coming back to L.A. and dabbling
in different jobs but never really accomplishing much, I wished I was still at
NASA, often cried in my cocktails about the opportunity I gave up there.
Then Donald Trump got elected in 2016 and, as President, started eviscerating
scientists and moving smart people out of government agencies such as NASA that deal with
science. Now for the first time in my
life I'm glad I didn't stay in Houston, where I was on a career path that guaranteed
me that inevitably I would take steps up the salary G-levels
I was hired as an Admin Tech, a program
where if I didn't screw up, I’d end up in Washington, still at NASA or at some other
agency, in some executive position.
Instead in 1983 I came back to Hollywood and worked at a chi-chi PR firm in Beverly Hills and then in 1987 got pregnant with Lizzie.
Even in the 1970s there were geologists at NASA already
concerned about changes they were seeing in Arctic and Antarctic ice levels.
*
It was the climate scientist in me that moved me to
South Lake Tahoe. In 2014, having no reason to keep living where I was, I got on a Google map and clicked on the little yellow man
and started looking for a place to move. As I walked up and down the streets here in South Lake, I saw all the shabby buildings here and figured, that's why so many rents are low in this chi-chi town in Craigslist ads. You can live, not great but live, in
South Lake on less than two thousand dollars a month.
Often in conversations at the bus stop someone who’s
lived in South Lake longer than I have will repeat a local maxim: “It's poverty with beautiful scenery.”
I moved to Tahoe because there's water here and the
temperatures don’t go too intensely high or low and the air is clean if you go
out early before the traffic fills the atmosphere with car exhaust.
*
It is getting warmer here, like everywhere, but as long as you stay out of the sun, you can still stay cool in the summers. At some point people are going to start installing air conditioners, I predict. Tahoe has Always been a summer resort, since white men first found it, because of its cool summers, but I bet in a few years more rentals will come with air conditioning.
It is getting warmer here, like everywhere, but as long as you stay out of the sun, you can still stay cool in the summers. At some point people are going to start installing air conditioners, I predict. Tahoe has Always been a summer resort, since white men first found it, because of its cool summers, but I bet in a few years more rentals will come with air conditioning.
There's water here, lots of it. Lake Tahoe is more than a mile deep in places and
huge. Plus it's cold water, COLD water,
so cold that people don’t really swim in it.
At the shallow sunny section of the lake at the Commons, mostly tourist swimmers take a dip, but I
don't think I've ever seen anyone out there in the lake doing laps, your
muscles would cramp up.
The water in Tahoe is So Cold that long time locals say, if you ever dove down into it, you’d find perfectly preserved bodies
of dead mobsters from the Nevada side. James Cameron should bring his device
here for a dive, wonder why he hasn’t, but I digress.
He better hurry as our blue lake is turning turquoise and
in some places green, because of all the
CO2, I think, from all the cars driving by to look at the beautiful lake. They release gas, and it settles over then sinks
into the water, turning it gradually from blue to green.
*
Posted by Kay Ebeling
Producer of City of Angels Blog
not just L.A., the city of angels is everywhere
***
Posted by Kay Ebeling
Producer of City of Angels Blog
not just L.A., the city of angels is everywhere
***
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
The Day Putin Came to Get Me
Short Fiction by Kay Ebeling
*
I saw them across the street,
one of the few times I opened my curtains.
The noise my neighbors
make all day long suddenly came to a stop.
So I turned my own volume down and heard the familiar sound of law
enforcement outside, voices over a police radio. Only this time the voices were speaking Russian.
Through the curtain I could
see shiny new black vehicles and guys who looked beefy and trained
pacing, patrolling a parameter.
My neighbors in the courtyard were startled, standing with beer can in
one hand, cigarette in the other, wavering on their feet, mouth opened gaping, grateful
to see that this arrival of The Man had nothing to do with them.
The Man was coming for
me, the “retired reporter” in apartment nine who hardly
talks to anyone, just exits and vacates the building as fast as possible when she
goes out.
One of the FBI-looking guys was soon at my front door knocking with the kind of authority that made you
jump and answer without delay.
Two of them entered and
spoke to me in Russian accents, a third guy was American, and I mean he looked
very American, blond beefy straight arrow military veteran American.
“I'm seventy years old,”
were the first words out of my mouth pleading with them to go easy on me, even though my seventieth birthday isn’t for a few
more months.
“Don’t worry,” said the blond Russian with a glint in his eye, and I was immediately relieved, knew he was telling the truth when
he said, “We aren't going to hurt you. Take
a half hour and pack a few suitcases, everything you'll need. You're not coming back.”
“What about the rest of
my stuff?” I asked pointing to mostly boxes of books I’d accumulated over the years.
He was placing my
laptops into protective cases: “A
crew will pack the rest and ship it to you. You will have it in a few weeks.”
“Weeks? Where am I going?”
“Moscow,” he
smiled. “Please start packing.”
Lucky for me, since
Trump got elected President, I've had suitcases and clothes ready to go, because I've sensed
there might come a time when I’d need to get out in a hurry, even made exit
plans, but none that involved riding away in a limousine.
“Why me?” I wondered
out loud.
The blond who
looked disarmingly like my daughter's Russian father so had that edge he needed to get close
to me got real close to me and whispered.
“I will tell you this
and then you must not repeat it ever again.”
My heart was going a
mile a minute as he continued.
“Vladimir Putin reads your blog,” he said, and I got real worried. Because I haven't exactly been
complimentary to the Russians as they have seemed to take over the USA and I
really haven't been nice to Trump on my little blog. But he continued:
“Not the web page you call
‘Pundit’ but the other one, about the Catholic priests who were pedophiles.”
I was quizzical,
stopped shoving the contents of my closet into a backpack and stared at him. He continued.
“Vladimir Putin was
molested by a Catholic priest, Russian Orthodox, when he was a boy,” the guy
continued in a casual tone. eyes averting for a moment. “He found the things you wrote back in 2007, 2010
and he has great respect for you, that from a studio apartment in L.A., you were able to help expose these black collar criminals, with a blog.”
“Oh,” I said and for just a second felt that old awful feeling. “I really
never wanted to talk about that subject again. I mean I moved to Tahoe to
pretend the whole thing never happened.”
“Still, Mr. Putin feels he can use your skills, based on your blog. He also feels his experience
with a priest as a boy had a great effect on him," He stopped and became very serious to say, "but he never discusses what happened with the priest."
He got very close to me and continued.
"In fact, he has told me to tell you this one time, and then once I have told you, tell you to never repeat it or even mention it again.”
He got very close to me and continued.
"In fact, he has told me to tell you this one time, and then once I have told you, tell you to never repeat it or even mention it again.”
I nodded, “Like I said,
I really never wanted to write about pedophile priests again.”
He nodded and with a
firm arm on my back, almost lifted me towards the front door.
"We have a job for you,”
said the Russian guy who weirdly no longer looked like my ex. “You're going to work on our troll
farm in St. Petersburg,” he said grabbing the rest of the suitcases and pushing
them out the door.
I often daydreamed about
the day I’d finally get out of my slummy apartment where as a little old lady
with a small pension I'm forced to live among criminals and deadbeats whose hollering
begins around 9 AM and continues into the day, getting louder and more chaotic
as the sun crosses the sky so when I'm home I have to have my own loud music
playing to drown them out.
As we pulled away in a limousine that had its own wi-fi bathroom and kitchen, I looked back at
my neighbors. Natalie, who seemed to keep the nonstop
party going, stood watching us pull away with her back hunched, gray hair stringing beside her crusted
face, tongue lapping inadvertently from her lips, as always.
The American guy said to
me, “They won’t be around much longer.
Trust me, you will be glad we came to get you.”
And I wondered.
*By Kay Ebeling
Producer of City of Angels Blog
not just L.A., the city of angels is everywhere
Monday, May 21, 2018
Fighting alongside 'ragged mob of obese Rambo infants sporting AR-15 hardware' not his thing
This is how the troll farms got their info (research)
In 2010 Israeli firm Wikistrat got American grad students, especially in poli sci and Law, to enter everything they knew while playing a Game ("gamification"), which in the end won one college the prize of $10K. Wikistrat (CEO Joel Zamel*) then provided source material for the Russian troll farms. "The Wikistrat platform enables the deconstruction of geopolitical issues and trends in a structured yet flexible manner,” Wikistrat press statements claim.
Yeah, flexible.
Zamel "has described the Wikistrat platform as 'Facebook meets Wikipedia,' or GLOMOD."
More info on Wikistrat TK, I'm sure.
*Joel Zamel "studied counter terrorism" before founding the firm, named in last week's groundbreaking NY Times piece re Trump/Russia/Saudi Arabia.
Yeah, flexible.
Zamel "has described the Wikistrat platform as 'Facebook meets Wikipedia,' or GLOMOD."
More info on Wikistrat TK, I'm sure.
*Joel Zamel "studied counter terrorism" before founding the firm, named in last week's groundbreaking NY Times piece re Trump/Russia/Saudi Arabia.
Mueller could end up being a blogger.
By Kay Ebeling
*
Connect here
or email cityofangelslady @ yahoo . com
*
*
Anyone else remember the warnings late 2016 that the information warfare attack on USA would now focus on left wing progressives? When several former intelligence guys went to the news to warn Americans after Putin turned the U.S. rightwing into Fox News zombies and got Donald Trump elected? All those intel professionals predicted the information warfare would continue with the Left as its target. The news manipulation would Be More Sophisticated, indeed now be empowered, because the President of the United States was not going to do anything to stop an act of war going on against our own nation.
Now I'm wondering about every news story that has appeared and dominated our news cycle in the past
year. Because while one weird quote gets
discussed and analyzed for days, news readers don’t really know what the president
is doing all day. Who is he talking to,
who is around him, what decisions is he making? Instead, the president's lawyer Rudy Giuliani goes on TV
and distracts all of us.
*
*
Physically this is
having a bad effect on me and probably other Americans. I can feel so wonderful after a day in Tahoe,
come home go to sleep, get up start next day, turn on the news and everything is
suddenly awful.
I don't want to turn
into one of those people who never pays attention to the news, because I think people like
that helped destroy America. If more people had been paying attention, this coup would not be happening.
I keep waiting for the
Big Act that will finally make this Trojan Horse presidency stop. Instead Trump just keeps on going.
Not only is no one slowing
Trump down, the Trojan Horse / Virus President seems to find ways around everything
the DOJ, Mueller, Democrats, thinking Republicans, independents, and what's left
of federal law enforcement are doing to stop him.
This is fricking
scary.
I don't think Mueller’s investigation is going to save the day, I think Trump and his a—hole cohorts have a scheme they are going to pull off to stop it.
I don't think Mueller’s investigation is going to save the day, I think Trump and his a—hole cohorts have a scheme they are going to pull off to stop it.
Bob Mueller may have
to start a website, become a blogger, to report findings of his investigation, while Trump stays
in office and the damage of this weaponized President goes on and on and on.
*
By Kay Ebeling
Producer, City of Angels Blog
Not Just L.A., the city of angels is everywhere
*Connect here
Kay Ebeling
*or email cityofangelslady @ yahoo . com
*
Sunday, May 20, 2018
I Am Legend joins 2018 to 2081, as Trump chaos plays out like Orwell's 1984
You don’t have to
invert 2018 to 2081 for the title of today's version of 1984, as Orwell did writing in 1948,
because the political horror story is going on today, it's not futuristic
fiction.
Now I'm reminded of the film, "I Am Legend."
Recently I clicked on a
Bill Maher video on YouTube and as I wandered around the house, the Auto Play continued through several videos from past few years, lots of monologues
from Bill Maher and other comedians. As the
clips play. it feels like I'm in those scenes of the movie “I Am Legend” where
the hero is in his kitchen while videos play, news clips that show how his
apocalyptic world went from embrace of a cure for cancer to a medical
catastrophe that turned humans who didn't die from it into zombie-like monsters. Will Smith as Dr. Robert Neville, the character
first introduced in Richard Matheson’s novel, eats breakfast and watches reruns
of videos that explain how his world became the hellscape it is in the film.
Today I'm watching Bill
Maher and Seth Meyers and Stephen Colbert clips from the past two years and
it's as if I am Robert Neville in “I Am Legend” watching video of what just happened
to the United States.
*
*
Are they telling us in
advance that Nazi like storm troopers are coming soon?
Lately I hear Trump and Giuliani say the FBI is acting like nazi
storm troopers and many pundits saying how strange that is, how it makes no sense.
Remember how everything the Trumpsters accused Hillary of doing, such as pay for play and rigging the election, turned out to be something the Trumpsters were actually doing themselves?
Remember how everything the Trumpsters accused Hillary of doing, such as pay for play and rigging the election, turned out to be something the Trumpsters were actually doing themselves?
Recently we learned that
Trump’s thugs raided his own doctors’ offices soon after he became President, with
no legal reason, just to seize the new president’s medical records. Are Nazi-like
raids what all of us in USA are in for soon?
I think so. I think as long as they are calling the FBI storm troopers in the way they served a search warrant on Michael Cohen, the Trumpsters are planning to build a new FBI that actually is full of storm troopers.
My passport is still good. . .
I think so. I think as long as they are calling the FBI storm troopers in the way they served a search warrant on Michael Cohen, the Trumpsters are planning to build a new FBI that actually is full of storm troopers.
My passport is still good. . .
The Trump revamped FBI
likely Will Be storm troopers, if Donald Trump is not impeached indicted and
sent to Guantanamo
Fast!
Fast!
This was amazing information warfare that brought down the USA,
mainly in 2016, but it was an attack of misinformation that dates back to 1995.
No weapons of war, no bullets, no blood even, unless
you count guys picking up guns to kill strangers after years of hearing someone
was coming for their guns.
What frightens me is what happens after one or two
generations of this misinformation, the limited amount of real truth that gets
to humans amidst all the drivel.
In two generations Americans won’t even remember
truth.
*
*
We Will All Be Like Russians
I watch documentaries and news reports about how people in Russia live, and up until about a year ago Americans like me were shocked that
Russians could be so misinformed, could be so devoted to corrupt political
leaders that they believe everything they say even though it's contrary to the
truth being seen by the rest of the world.
Americans are rapidly becoming just as brainwashed as
Russians.
*
Since the last days of the 2016 election, I've felt a
fear and now that he's in office 1.5 years, the fear is distinct. As a little girl, I’d feel a similar visceral
fear when I’d hear about how easy it was to change the way people thought in
the 1950s Soviet Union.
*
By Kay Ebeling
Producer, City of Angels Blog
Not Just L.A., the city of angels is everywhere
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